Where? How much powder? And link because I call BS. The only way I see that happening is if the child were allergic.

High amounts of spices only give people the craps when the seeds are not disgaurded. Because most of them are not digestable.

@dgscheri No one can consume enough vitamin C for it to be leathal. There are people who think that it is a cure for cancer and give themselvs IV drips of it and I have read some of them are taking in up to 1 Kg of vitamin C per day with no ill affects. So at what point does it become lethal? I guess if you take a giant solid wedge of it and cram it down a windpipe and choke someone to death.Reply

Technically chocolate can kill you. The lethal dose for an average male is 22kg though.

Top chillies for sale hit 600k-1.2m on the Scoville scale (~12m is pure Capsaicin), whereas Mace/pepper spray is about 2m on the scale. Typically these are potent enough that a small dab on the tongue is enough to make most people's eyes stream for an hour or so.

Never had ghost peppers but have had scorpion peppers. My friend grew some and dried them and made some "crushed red pepper" if you will out of some of his scorpion peppers. Just a bit of dust on from them sends your taste buds screaming. Heat of course is all relative. I'm sure either ghost or scorpion peppers will make most cry. I like hot stuff as well but I like to taste my food too.Reply

Another thing...with peppers like these if you do buy them and want to eat/serve/cook with them they are serious business. You should make sure and wash your hands (or wear glove) for real. These are not habanero's or jalapeno's. Reply

As someone who grows my own chilies and love spicy Indian food, I'd love it if these restaurants could drop the hot/very hot/stupidly hot/etc. scales and just write up what chilies they put in there and circa how many to expect in a portion :)

If that thing there is to indicate there's a whole Bhut Jolokia in that tiny bowl, I'd probably not do it. The presence of a Bhut in the dish means absolutely nothing without an estimate of quantity though.Reply

Due to unforeseen and unfortunate circumstances, several of our senior editors have suddenly passed away. As a result several new positions have opened up at AnandTech which we will be immediately filling.

That's because Tabasco tastes like shit (well, vinegar mixed with peppers). Just add some ground (dried) or slcied (fresh) chilli peppers to your food without the vinegar flavor and you'll begin to appreciate it.

Start with something mild like Jalapeno chilli and work your way up until you no longer feel the taste of the pepper itself. There is no point in going any further from there, just back down a bit and enjoy !Reply

Drink some milk when you eat stuff like that. It's the only thing that can break down the pepper seed oil and take the burn out.......All I can say is, I feel sorry for ya the next time ya gotta drop a load LOL. Reply

Watching this all go down on Brian's twitter feed gave me a good laugh. Hope you guys aren't in too much pain and everybody makes a speedy recovery.

Now to let my inner nerd out, your mission for today is to find out if somebody at CES has invented a capsaicin breathalyser test, so you can quantify the burn and maybe put up some benchmarks on your new 'Death Curry' feature.Reply